The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduces the high speed data packet access (HSDPA) from Release 5. In the HSDPA, the packet switching technology is adapted, which implements data transmission with a short sub-frame of transmission time interval (TTI).
In the HSDPA, the network side can dynamically allocates the transmit power and transmission rate to a user equipment (UE) for data transmission based on the channel conditions of the UE. The UE periodically reports the channel quality indicator (CQI) value over the high speed dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH). The CQI value indicates the channel conditions of the UE. Release 5 protocol defines 30 CQI values. Each CQI value indicates a combination of the transmit block size (TBS), number of channels, and modulation mode. Because a probability of correctly receiving the TBS is related to a received signal noise ratio (SNR), the CQI value can be mapped into the combination of the TBS, number of channels, and modulation mode, and meanwhile is corresponding to an SNR.
In the network supporting the HSDPA, each cell allocates a certain number of air interface resources for HSDPA data transmission. These air interface resources mainly include the air interface transmit power, and air interface transmission high speed physical data sharing channel (HS-PDSCH) codes, which are shared competitively by all users in a cell. In every TTI, the network determines to which users the data is to be sent at the current TTI, at which rate the data is to be sent, and how many resources are to be allocated. User selection is determined by a scheduling algorithm. The scheduling algorithm calculates the priority for each user, and the air interface resources are allocated to each user based on the priority. The data transmission requirements of users with higher priorities are first met. If there are remaining resources, they are allocated to the users with lower priorities.
The inventor finds that: in the prior art, the current resource allocation policy is to allocate resources to the users with high priorities first for data transmission, and allocate the remaining resources to the users with low priorities. The resource allocation is performed in serial based on the scheduling priority until the resources are exhausted.
However, the channel conditions of different users vary, the policy that users with high priorities occupy all resources fails to consider the difference of users' channel conditions. As a result, the throughput rate of a cell cannot be maximized.